Currently most drugs are developed for indications and by deriving dosing recommendations for an average patient; body size is sometimes taken into consideration. However, there are potential pitfalls to this, as ethnic variation may influence "average response" to drugs either on the basis of genetic differences or for geographical reasons. Our understanding of such variability is accumulating with examples of interethnic differences for drug sensitivity and toxicities, especially for low therapeutic index drugs like anticancer agents, antiplatelet drugs and anticoagulants. In this session, we will discuss ethnicity and genetics, defining ancestry, examine genotypic variation of genes pertinent to drug disposition globally, and discuss examples of interethnic variability in East Asians.
Educational Session: Interethnic Differences in Response to Anticancer Agents

Interethnic variability of drug response: A therapeutic conundrum; Boon-Cher Goh. National University Hospital, Singapore

Race/ethnicity and genetics; Shweta Choudhry. University of California, San Francisco, CA

Global pharmacogenomics; Sharon Marsh. Pharmacogenomics Centre, Montreal, QC, Canada

Pharmacogenetics of anticancer agents: East Asians as a susceptible population; Soo-Chin Lee. National University Health System, Sinagpore, Singapore,